


Names and Naming

by Listless_Songbird



Series: Gateway Therapy [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Helen wants her friends to be as settled in themselves as she now is, Post-Episode 146, Screenplay/Script Format, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 23:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20016496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Listless_Songbird/pseuds/Listless_Songbird
Summary: Helen talks with Daisy about her distance from the Hunt and what its doing to her.





	Names and Naming

[RECORDER CLICKS ON]

(The sound of soft pained grunt followed by long measured breaths before a soft sigh)

DAISY: Fuck.

[A DOOR CREAKS OPEN]

HELEN: (an intrigued hum) And I thought _Jon_ was denying himself what he needed to survive. Do you even know why you’re starving?

DAISY: (sharply) Yes. 

[THE DOOR CLOSES]

HELEN: And how long have you been starving yourself, letting yourself be hollowed out?

DAISY: I'm **_not_ **going back to the Hunt. 

(An uncomfortable silence filled only by Daisy’s slow deliberate breathing)

HELEN: Something i've discovered over the years is that Names are important. They are a delineation between things. They don’t define who you are so much as they more firmly define who you are not. 

(A brief pause, Helen seems to be organizing her thoughts)

HELEN: I am Helen. I am more than Helen of course, and far past the time where I am no longer _this_ me I will still be Me just as much as I am still Michael. I am still the Distortion, the Threshold, the Liar, the Storyteller, Elizabeth and Alexandria, the Wanderers, the Forever Path. They are all me, but _I_ am Helen. My Me is more than I, but I am exclusively me. I have defined myself, as much as I can be defined being who I am.

It's the same with the moreandothers. If you look into it, or simply Know I suppose, in this temple of the Unasked Answer, you can find that it is a fascinating history of what we all call our gods. The moreandothers are so much more than can fit neatly into a single unbroken mind, and so the lens through which you view them is important. 

For some the connection is unknown or the connection kept private and only given a name in the smallest corner of your thoughts. Hidden away, but doing so shapes how you live the connection. Most people do it if exposed long enough, even if they’re not aware–

DAISY: (interrupting in a muted tone) Song of blood. It was the song of blood.

HELEN: See! Now that's a good name. Well. No. That's an awful name, but not because of what the words of it are. The name, the _calling_ of it is passive, a steady state with no way to feed or be fed by it, it simply exists. Perhaps however that was for the best when you were ignorant of the whole of this world. 

But the Hunt? Now there’s a name. An action, intent and goal all in one. That is a name that requires feeding. And you did feed it didn’t you, at the Watcher‘s behest. 

And now in the Buried you lost the names. You lost the what-im-not of the names. The lines of where the connection ends are blurred to indistinguishable boundaries and you make believe that you’ve escaped. But you still call it the Hunt, yes?

DAISY: (slowly as if testing out the word) …yes?

HELEN: And so you’re still Starving from it. But now the edges have faded enough that you don’t want to feed it and so you don’t. But it still needs to be fed. And so it feeds on you. 

DAISY: (beginning to get irritated) What would you have me do? I refuse to lose myself again. I’m managing fine, better than others, better than Jon. 

HELEN: You are! And it's a fascinating study of how to be and yet not exist within a boundary. But I quite like you and don’t want you to fade to nothing. So you need a Name! 

DAISY: (flatly) Daisy. That's the name I chose and im not changing it. 

HELEN: Oh no not that one, your name is delightfully You. No what you need a new name for the moreandother you serve. There are many, far too many to list but I think you might be best for the Chase. 

Any Name of course has the expounded version made by those who need more structured guide. The Followed-Footprints is a fine one or the Lost-Now-Forever-Found. But I think the broad version suits you. 

DAISY: How so exactly? How is it different from the Hunt?

HELEN: Well that’s why it suits! If it’s indistinguishable from the Hunt for you, then thats the part you want. Have you ever wanted the kill? To have the trophies? To revel in past Hunts?

DAISY: Not really- sometimes? The arrest was secondary. I wanted the Hunt, I wanted to feel it in my veins, to have a target.

HELEN: But not the kill. 

(A sigh and her next words are muffled by a hand that scrubs across her face)

DAISY: No, not the end of it. 

HELEN: You wanted the Chase. 

DAISY: Yes. 

HELEN: (in a matter of fact tone) So Name it. Don't get lost in the space between you and what is not your god. 

DAISY: (frustrated) I can't just. Give in to it, look at where I was before the Coffin. Look at Jon! They all need me here. I can’t just go off on a Chase after a target any time I feel like it. I doubt I’d remember to come back till its too late. 

HELEN: (gently) So you plan to starve yourself to nonexistence and pretend that it’s a better end than you deserve?

DAISY: Yes? No.

(A frustrated growl fills the room as Daisy starts to prowl around it)

DAISY: It's not that simple. 

HELEN: Of course it isn’t, delineations never are. To this very hour I have regrets about how Me became I. It doesn’t go away. But it does get better, and again, a Name is not who you are but who you’re not. 

If you want the Chase to feed with the catch and release of prey you can. As long as you delineate. A firm line of ‘this is what I am not’

DAISY: (scoffing) Catch and release? That doesn’t seem like what the Hunt is. Don’t these things feed on fear? What is the fear if they know they won't die. 

HELEN: (simply) The fear that they’ll be caught again of course. 

(A hum that follows echoes in thousands of impossible directions followed by a click of a tongue to sharp to be real)

HELEN: You’re still thinking too small. Not quite grasping all of what your moreandother encompasses. 

It will feed on what you give it. If to you it is the Catch and Catch Again then it will feed on your prey just the same as any other. 

DAISY: So if I Name it– it will just be? 

HELEN: You have to believe it, to Know that your Name is the truest name you could give it. That nothing else will fit like that does. 

DAISY: (unbelieving) Are you sure?

HELEN: For you? Yes. You know yourself, you know who you were before and who you become without. You know Daisy so you can know who Daisy of the…

(Helen trails off expectantly. Daisy thinks.)

DAISY: Pursuit. I can’t Chase, not anymore, I can’t sprint off to catch my– my prey, leaving behind whatever’s slowing me down. It's not the Hunt, it's not the Chase, not whatever list of names you have. 

If i'm going to Name it, the Name going to be my choice. 

HELEN: (excitedly) Now you understand! And what will you pursue?

DAISY: Answers. I think– 

(A contemplative pause, Daisy’s breathing has leveled out, become more natural)

DAISY: Yeah. That fits. I'm going after answers. That’s, I can live with that (a short laugh) and hey, I guess I got some now. 

HELEN: (satisfied) So you have. 

(Daisy suddenly gasps)

DAISY: Wait what’s, what just happened–

HELEN: (delighted) It’s strange, not being hungry after so long isn't it? 

DAISY: (breathless with realization) Oh. 

[THE CREAK OF A DOOR OPENING]

HELEN: Have fun, Daisy of the Pursuit. I look forward to watching you work.

[THE DOOR SHUTS]

[RECORDER CLICKS OFF]

**Author's Note:**

> So heres a thousand words of me rambling on about names. This was originally a _Helen_ character study but Im weak for Daisy and her relation to the Hunt.
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
